Report: The Gender Pay Gap Costs Women $500B a Year

Women earned 80 cents, on average, for every dollar earned by men in 2017, according to the latest report from the American Association of University Women (AAUW), even though women had greater educational attainment. This gender pay gap costs women $500 billion annually.

“While the nation’s unemployment rate is down, and the number of women working is up, the wage gap is sadly remaining stagnant,” said Kim Churches, chief executive officer of AAUW, in a statement. “It’s unacceptable. There is no gender differentiation when it comes to quality, skills and talent.”

PayScale’s report, The State of the Gender Pay Gap, also showed a persistent wage gap. Comparing all women to all men, women earn 78 cents for every dollar earned by men. Even controlling for factors like job title and work experience, women earn only 98 cents on the dollar. And, our data showed that the gap grew worse as women climbed the ladder: the controlled gender pay gap is 98.3 cents for individual contributors, but 94.4 cents for executives.

Do You Know What You're Worth?

The 5 Largest Gender Pay Gaps

AAUW analyzed 114 occupations and found that some were worse than others when it came to the pay gap. The largest collective gender pay gaps were in these jobs:

Financial managers, $19.6 billion

Physicians and surgeons, $19.5 billion

Accountants and auditors, $17.3 billion

First-line supervisors of retail sales workers, $14.8 billion

Registered nurses, $12.5 billion

The only occupation where women earned more than men was wholesale and retail buyer. In that job, women earned $235 million more than men.

How to Close the Gap

AAUW offers several recommendations to close the gender pay gap. In addition to policy changes at the state and federal level, they suggest several efforts that employers and individuals can make to achieve pay equity.

For employers, they suggest conducting pay audits, prohibiting retaliation for wage disclosure and banning the salary history question. For employees, they recommend honing negotiation skills — and learning how to navigate bias:

Traditionally, it has been socially acceptable for men to negotiate for raises because negotiating conforms to the stereotype of men as assertive. But negotiation is especially tricky for women because some behaviors that work for men, like self-promotion and assertiveness, may backfire on women (Carter & Silva, 2011; Bowles & Babcock, 2013). Knowing what your skills are worth, making clear what you bring to the table, emphasizing common goals, and maintaining a positive attitude are some negotiation tactics that have been shown to be effective (Babcock & Laschever, 2008).

To that end, AAUW is offering salary negotiation workshops both online and in cities across the country.